Ironside (TV Series 1967–1975) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error Wheelchair-bound detective Robert T. Ironside battles the bad guys on the streets of San Francisco. Creator: Ironside's Aunt Victoria suspects foul play when one of her card-playing friends vanishes. Despite her nephew's admonitions, Victoria and her bridge partners shadow their missing friend's husband, ... 8.5 Mark finally graduates from law school. He takes an interest in a janitor from the school who finds himself in jail accused of grand theft. Meanwhile Ironside struggles with the reality that Mark may... 8.4 Jerry, an adolescent boy, goes into shock after his mother is murdered. Ironside looks after him and tries to convince his vengeful father not to escape from prison. 8.4 Famous Directors: From Sundance to Prominence From Christopher Nolan to Quentin Tarantino and every Coen brother in between, many of today's most popular directors got their start at the Sundance Film Festival .

Here's a list of some of the biggest names to go from Sundance to Hollywood prominence. a list of 22 titles created 03 Feb 2013 a list of 21 titles created 09 Aug 2014 a list of 49 titles created 05 Mar 2015 a list of 35 titles created 6 months ago a list of 24 titles created 4 months ago Search for " Ironside " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 2 Golden Globes. Another 2 wins & 17 nominations. See more awards » Videos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7/10 X Sam McCloud is a Marshal from a Taos, New Mexico, who takes a temporary assignment in the New York City Police. His keen sense of detail and detecting subtle clues, learned from his experience, enable him to nab unsuspecting criminals despite his unbelieving boss. Stars: Dennis Weaver, J.D.

Cannon, Terry Carter Frank Cannon is an overweight, balding ex-cop with a deep voice and expensive tastes in culinary pleasures; he becomes a high-priced private investigator. Stars: William Conrad, Patrick Culliton, Tom Pittman The investigations of Hawaii Five-0, an elite branch of the Hawaii State Police answerable only to the governor and headed by stalwart Steve McGarrett. Stars: Jack Lord, James MacArthur, Kam Fong The exploits of milk-swilling, geriatric private eye Barnaby Jones. Stars: Buddy Ebsen, Lee Meriwether, Mark Shera The cases of maverick undercover New York City detective Tony Baretta. Stars: Robert Blake, Tom Ewell, Michael D. Roberts Mannix worked originally for Wickersham at Intertect and then struck out on his own, assisted by Peggy Fair (whose cop-husband had been killed) and police department contact Tobias. Stars: Mike Connors, Gail Fisher, Ward Wood A bald, lollipop sucking police detective with a fiery righteous attitude battles crime in his city. Stars: Telly Savalas, Dan Frazer, Kevin Dobson The cases of a coroner who investigates suspicious deaths that usually suggest murder.

Stars: Jack Klugman, John S. Ragin, Robert Ito A veteran cop with more than 20 years of experience is teamed with a young Inspector to solve crimes in San Francisco. Stars: Karl Malden, Michael Douglas, Reuben Collins San Francisco Police Commissioner Stewart "Mac" McMillan and his amateur detective wife keep their marriage unpredictable while solving the city's most baffling crimes. Stars: Rock Hudson, John Schuck, Susan Saint James A pair of intelligence agents posing as a tennis pro and his coach go on secret missions around the world. Stars: Robert Culp, Bill Cosby, Kenneth Tobey An elite covert operations unit carries out highly sensitive missions subject to official denial in the event of failure, death or capture. Stars: Peter Graves, Barbara Bain, Greg Morris Edit Storyline Ironside is confined to a wheel chair (an attempted assassination left him paralyzed). With his former assistants Brown and Whitfield (later Belding) and former delinquent (and later lawyer) Mark, he combats crime for the San Francisco police from his mobile office (a van) while leaving a pot of chili cooking back at headquarters. Written by Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu> The chief of detectives!

See more » Genres: 14 September 1967 (USA) See more » Also Known As: The Raymond Burr Show See more » Filming Locations: Did You Know? Trivia Star Raymond Burr injured his eyes working on the series. Being in a wheelchair, he had to look up directly into the hot lights used to film his scenes and his eyes were slightly burned. See more » Quotes See more » Crazy Credits Gene Lyons plays San Francisco Police Commissioner Dennis Randall. However, on some closing credits, Lyons is listed as "The Commissioner". See more » Connections One ace of a detective series 10 December 2002 | by raysond (Chapel Hill,North Carolina) – See all my reviews Actor Raymond Burr just couldn't relax after nine seasons as defense lawyer/super sleuth Perry Mason. So,after many years on the Tiffany network,CBS-TV,the actor switched networks this time over to the Peacock Network,NBC-TV where the majority of its programming was in living color. The show is called "Ironside" and when it premiered in the fall of 1967,it came around a time where the fight of the civil rights movement was being followed(three years after President Lyndon B.

Johnson sign in into law the civil rights act in 1964),the protest of the Vietnam War,and at a time where the nation was at a crossroads with the death of two of the nation's most famous leaders were cut down at the peak of their prime(Bobby Kennedy,and Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr.)not to mention at the same time the nation's most rioting of its cities and the summer of love and so forth. This show also came about during the escalation of the Vietnam War,the fall of Watergate and ended its run with the final Presidency of Richard M. Nixon. All of this occurred during the show's run. It is also to note that this series was Raymond Burr's second successful show,after playing America's most recognizable lawyer for more than a decade. "Ironside",was a consistent ratings winner throughout the eight years that it ran on NBC-TV from its premiere episode in September of 1967 through the show's final episode of the series in April of 1975.

"Ironside" was the first crime drama series to show a person who had a disability but at the same time had a knack for catching the baddies and so forth and Raymond Burr was a master actor at what he did. Just like Perry Mason,Ironside also knew the law and how it was to be used and not abused. Burr's character was the chief of police of the San Francisco Police Department who was in charge of special cases along with his partners Don Galloway,Don Mitchell,and Barbara Anderson who were all police officers. If there was something going down,you know that Ironside was on the case! The show had everything and I do mean everything that included crooked officers not to mention social issues of its day and so forth. Oh yeah,the music....was composer Quincy Jones the greatest ever! Yes,the best theme score ever made! Also to note that this show had a array of guest stars to boot as well that made their appearances including one episode which featured a very successful and popular Motown singer making his acting debut. The others including a array of stars that were regulars or special guest starsone of which including veteran actors Severn Darren and Bernie Hamilton.

The series also show some of the best drama and high octane drama anywhere and you'll see this in some of the episodes too. You also got the chance to see Ironside's helper Mark Sanger go for being his assistant, to private detective,to police officer,and by the final season of the series go from getting married to being a district attorney and from there district court justice of the peace. The pilot was a made for TV-Movie that premiered that same year before it became a TV series as part of NBC's Saturday Night Special. The series ran on NBC-TV from 1967-75,and after it went off the air twelve years later,the peacock network brought Burr back as Ironside in a made for TV-Movie called "The Return Of Ironside" in 1987,reuniting Raymond Burr with former cast members Don Galloway and Don Mitchell and a special guest appearance from Barbara Anderson. Recently,TV-Land brought back the reruns to this classic series and it needs to be seen for those of us who have fond memories of this show from the late 60's and part of the early 70's. 20 of 22 people found this review helpful.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes Raymond Burr, Actor, 76, Dies - Played Perry Mason and Ironside - NYTimes.com Raymond Burr, Actor, 76, Dies; Played Perry Mason and Ironside By WILLIAM GRIMES Published: September 14, 1993 Raymond Burr, the burly, impassive actor who played the defense lawyer Perry Mason and the police detective Robert T. Ironside on television, died on Sunday at his ranch in Dry Creek Valley, near Healdsburg, Calif. He was 76. The cause was kidney cancer, said his doctor, Paul J. Marguglio. Mr. Burr started his career playing Hollywood heavies, most notably in Alfred Hitchcock's film "Rear Window." But he captivated television audiences with his portrayal of the Los Angeles trial lawyer Perry Mason, who won his first case in September 1957 and continued an unbroken winning streak that lasted nine seasons.

Gravelly-voiced and unrelentingly stern, with a habit of exhaling resonantly through his nostrils, Mason got to the bottom of seemingly unfathomable mysteries every week, relying on the private investigator Paul Drake (played by William Hopper) and his faithful secretary, Della Street (Barbara Hale), to defeat the hapless prosecutor Hamilton Burger (William Talman). To pull off his last-minute courtroom triumphs, Mason often broke down witnesses on the stand or produced surprise witnesses that left the prosecution's case a shambles. One year after "Perry Mason" went off the air in September 1966, Mr. Burr stepped into the role of Robert Ironside, the chief of detectives for the San Francisco police department, who worked from a wheelchair after a would-be assassin's bullet left him paralyzed from the waist down. A Peripatetic Youth Mr. Burr was born in New Westminster, British Columbia, not far from Vancouver. His father was a hardware dealer, and his mother was a pianist and music teacher. Soon after he was born, the family moved to China and lived there for five years.

When Raymond was 6, his parents divorced, and his mother took him to live in a hotel that her father owned in Vallejo, Calif. He attended the San Rafael Military Academy but dropped out at 13 to help support his family in the Depression. After a year working on a cattle and sheep ranch, he returned to school, but he quit before completing junior high school. After leaving school, he ran a weather station for the Forest Service and for a time worked in China, where his family owned property. He took extension courses, taught school, worked as a traveling salesman and wrote short stories. Mr. Burr made his stage debut at 12 with a Vancouver stock company, and throughout his teen-age years he picked up occasional acting work. In 1941, he made his Broadway debut in the musical "Crazy With the Heart." He also appeared in "The Duke in Darkness" on Broadway in 1944 before entering the Navy. Mr. Burr left the Navy in 1946 weighing nearly 350 pounds, and he immediately landed work in films as a villain.

His first screen role, in "Without Reservations" (1946), starring John Wayne and Claudette Colbert led to steady work. In all, he appeared in 90 films. He first made an impression in "Pitfall" (1948), a suspense film starring Dick Powell, and won critical praise as the district attorney who hounds Montgomery Clift in "A Place in the Sun" (1951) and as the murderer in "Rear Window" (1954). One of his most unusual credits was an appearance in the first Godzilla film as a journalist who relays an account of Godzilla's rampage. His other films include "San Quentin" (1947), "The Adventures of Don Juan" (1948), "A Cry in the Night" (1956) and "Desire in the Dust" (1960). More recently, he appeared in "Airplane II: The Sequel"(1982) and "Delirious" (1985). Landing His Biggest Role In 1957, Mr. Burr was chosen over contenders including Fred MacMurray and Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

to play the starring role in "Perry Mason," a CBS-TV series based on the mystery novels of Erle Stanley Gardner. In the 1960-61 season, the show was among the five most popular on television, and Mr. Burr twice won Emmy Awards for best actor in a series. Even after the show was canceled, Mason lived on in syndication. Mr. Burr recreated the role in "The New Perry Mason" in 1973, and in a television movie, "Perry Mason Returns," that was the second-highest-rated television movie in the 1985-86 season. It led to 25 more Perry Mason vehicles. After appearing as Ironside on NBC from 1967 to 1975, Mr. Burr played a journalist in "Kingston: Confidential" in 1977. The next year, he appeared in the mini-series "Centennial," and in the late 80's he also was one of the hosts of "Unsolved Mysteries." In August, he completed location work in Denver for "The Case of the Killer Kiss," a Perry Mason television movie. According to the reference work Current Biography, Mr.

Burr was married three times. His first wife, Annette Sutherland, an Englishwoman, was killed in 1943 when the plane in which she was traveling was shot down by the Germans. His second marriage, to Isabella Ward, ended in divorce, and his third wife, Laura Andrina Morgan, died of cancer in 1955. His only child, Michael Evan, by his first marriage, died of leukemia in 1953. Mr. Burr, who was a cooking enthusiast and once owned an art gallery in Beverly Hills, Calif., bought a ranch and vineyard in Sonoma County in 1981, where he raised orchids, tended his vines and fruit trees, and kept sheep. He is survived by a sister, Geraldine Fuller of Fairbanks, Alaska. Photo: Raymond Burr, right, with William Talman in "Perry Mason." (CBS, 1966) Ironside (TV series) Ironside (TV series) Raymond Burr as Robert IronsideDon Galloway as Det. Sgt.

Ed BrownDon Mitchell as Mark Sanger Theme music composer Edit Block Title screen Ironside is a Universal television series which ran on NBC from September 14, 1967 to January 16, 1975. The show starred Raymond Burr as the wheelchair-using Chief of Detectives, Robert T. Ironside. The character's debut was in a TV-movie on March 28, 1967. The original title of the show in the United Kingdom was A Man Called Ironside. The show earned Burr six Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations. Plot Edit Block The show revolved around former San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Chief of Detectives Robert T. Ironside (Raymond Burr), a veteran of more than twenty years of police service who was forced to retire from the department after a sniper's bullet paralyzed him from the waist down and forced him to use a wheelchair. In the pilot episode, Ironside shows his strength of character and gets himself appointed a "special department consultant" by his good friend, Police Commissioner Dennis Randall. He does this by calling a press conference and then tricking Commissioner Randall into meeting his terms.

Ironside uses an attic floor room (for living and office space) at the SFPD headquarters and made use of a specially modified and equipped police truck and later a modified day van to accommodate his wheelchair. In the pilot he requests that Ed Brown & Eve Whitfield are assigned to him. He later recruits the angst filled Mark Sanger to be his personal assistant after Mark is brought in as a suspect who wanted to kill Ironside. The show became a success as Ironside depended on brains and initiative in handling cases. Supporting characters on Ironside included Det. Sgt. Ed Brown (Don Galloway), and a young socialite-turned-plainclothes officer, Eve Whitfield (Barbara Anderson). (Eve's clothes were far from plain as she often changed stylish outfits from scene to scene.) There was also delinquent-turned-bodyguard/assistant Mark Sanger (Don Mitchell), who also opted to become a police officer and subsequently graduated from law school (night classes were mentioned from early on) and even married late in the run of the series. Commissioner Randall was played by Gene Lyons.

By the show's fourth season, Anderson left the show over a contract dispute (at the same time she was getting married) and was replaced by another young policewoman, Fran Belding (Elizabeth Baur), who filled much the same role for four more years. The show enjoyed an eight-season run on NBC, drawing respectable, if not always high, ratings. As the eighth season began, Universal released a syndicated rerun package of episodes from earlier seasons under the title The Raymond Burr Show, reflecting the practice of that time to differentiate original network episodes from syndicated reruns whenever possible. Upon NBC's mid-season cancellation, however, the syndicated episodes reverted to the Ironside title. The show was filmed in a mixture of locations, sometimes out in San Francisco but also with a large amount of scenes filmed inside a studio including scenes involving conversations inside a moving vehicle where a traffic backdrop is used. The shows were also padded out with large amounts of stock footage over San Francisco, normally featuring panning shots of the Coit Tower or regular clips of general traffic scenes. The continuity on these shots is sometimes poor with repeated use of particular clips and details being missed.

In several early episodes Sargent Brown drives a black Ford sedan which is normally a 1965 year Ford Fairlane but the next clip shows him turning up in a 1968 model Ford Torino sedan. A roster of guest stars Edit Block One of the longer-running police dramas of the day, the series featured appearances by a number of actors, familiar and unfamiliar, among whom were Lynn Borden, Kim Darby, Antonio Fargas, Tiny Tim (in the pilot TV-movie), Randolph Mantooth, Cal Bellini, Sharon Gless, Dabbs Greer, Bernie Kopell, Frank Gorshin, Jess Walton, Pernell Roberts, Alan Oppenheimer, Dan Kemp, E. G.

Marshall, Harrison Ford, John Schuck, Ingrid Pitt, Susan Saint James, Ivan Dixon, Harry Townes, Pat Hingle, Norman Alden, Anne Francis, David Carradine, Charo, Joseph Campanella, Bill Quinn, Bernard Fox, Tyler McVey, Robert Webber, Alan Hale, Jr., Marion Ross, Marcia Strassman, Susan Sullivan, Suzanne Pleshette, Bo Hopkins, James Hong, Jeanne Cooper, Paul Winfield, Harold Gould, James Farentino, Robert Reed, Bill Bixby, David Cassidy, David Hartman, Dana Elcar, Tina Louise, Lincoln Kilpatrick, Robert Karnes, Tyler MacDuff, Greg Mullavy, Rod Serling, Gene Raymond, Francine York, Peter Mark Richman, Jennifer Gan, Clu Gulager, Joel Grey, Van Williams, John Hoyt, Scott Glenn, William Windom, Joshua Bryant, Dorothy Malone, Robert Alda, Barbara Rush, Jack Kelly, Jason Wingreen, George Takei, George Wallace, John M.

Pickard, Diana Muldaur, Jodie Foster, William Katt, Lee Grant, Steve Forrest, Susan Olsen, Michael Lerner, Edward Asner, Eddie Garrett, Darwin Joston, John Rubinstein, Jack Lord, Scott Marlowe, Norman Fell, Gavin MacLeod, Gary Collins, Johnny Seven, William Shatner, Bobby Darin, Martin Sheen, Cheryl Ladd, William Daniels, William Schallert, Burgess Meredith, Vic Tayback, Arch Johnson, James Drury, Ed Flanders and Bruce Lee. Future Knots Landing stars Joan Van Ark and William Devane made cameo appearances. Kathleen Freeman and Kent McCord appeared in the premiere episode. Raymond Burr's ex-Perry Mason co-star Barbara Hale guest-starred in one episode, as well as future Quincy, M.E. stars, Robert Ito, Garry Walberg and Val Bisoglio. Future Hill Street Blues stars Michael Conrad, James B. Sikking and George Wyner were major Universal Studios players who guest starred in separate episodes. Sorrell Booke better known as Boss Hogg in the Dukes of Hazzard TV series played a jewel thief matched against Ironside in the opening Season 2 episode 'Shell Game".

Richard Anderson appeared in the last episode. Don Galloway's daughter, Tracy Galloway, made a few guest appearances as well. Future The Price Is Right model Janice Pennington was in one episode. Music legend Quincy Jones, who wrote the Ironside theme song, made a guest appearance, and screen legend Myrna Loy did, too. Future Lou Grant star Edward Asner guest starred in the episode "The Fourteenth Runner," for which the story was supplied by that series' developer Leon Tokatyan. 1971's fall TV season on NBC opened with a two-hour crossover between Ironside and a new series, Sarge starring George Kennedy as a cop-turned-priest. Kennedy's San Diego-based Father Samuel Cavanaugh came to San Francisco because of the death of a friend and fellow priest, and his investigation got him embroiled with Ironside and his staff. The special consolidated the two shows' consecutive time slots, and has been subsequently seen as a TV-movie, The Priest Killer. Music Edit Block The opening theme music was written by Quincy Jones and was the first synthesizer-based television theme song.

A brief, 15-second excerpt from the opening of the theme music is used in Kill Bill as the Bride's recurring revenge motif, which flares up with a red-tinged flashback whenever she's in the company of her next target. Much of the music score for the first few seasons of Ironside was by Oliver Nelson. TV reunion movie Edit Block Burr and the main cast reunited for a made-for-TV movie in 1993 which aired not long before Burr's death. Burr was starring in an ongoing series of Perry Mason TV movies at the time, so in order to make himself look less like the other character, he dyed his hair and modified his full beard to a goatee for the Ironside movie. Unlike the original series, which took place in San Francisco, California, the reunion took place in Denver, Colorado (with the excuse that Ed Brown had become the city's deputy chief of police and being a leading candidate to be appointed chief), which was also where most of Burr's Perry Mason films were produced. Galloway, Mitchell, Baur and Anderson all re-created their roles here.

Parodies An episode of Get Smart which aired in March, 1969 was titled "Leadside" and featured a wheelchair-using master criminal by that name (and his assistants). The December 1970 issue of Mad Magazine included a parody of Ironside titled "Ironride". The 1980 television movie Murder Can Hurt You spoofs numerous TV detectives from the 1970s and 80s and includes Victor Buono playing the wheelchair-using detective "Ironbottom." Cultural references Edit Block Tom T. Hall's country music classic "Old Dogs and Children and Watermelon Wine," about a nostalgic conversation in an almost deserted barroom, mentions the bartender passing the time by watching "Ironside" on television, although the song refers to it as "Ironsides." DVD releases Edit Block Shout! Factory has released the first 4 seasons of Ironside on DVD in Region 1. In Region 2, Anchor Bay Entertainment released the first season on DVD in the UK on August 25, 2008. In Region 4, Madman Entertainment has released the first seven seasons on DVD. Season 7 was released on February 2, 2011.

Season 5 includes the 2 part crossover episode The Priest Killer, a crossover with the series Sarge which was never aired as part of the series. DVD Name Raymond Burr - Biography - IMDb Raymond Burr Biography Showing all 48 items Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (3) | Trivia (36) | Personal Quotes (2) Overview (5) 6' 1½" (1.87 m) Mini Bio (1) Born Raymond William Stacy Burr on 21 May 1917 in New Westminster, British Columbia, Burr spent most of his early life traveling. As a youngster, his father moved his family to China, where the elder Burr worked as a trade agent. When the family returned to Canada, Raymond's parents separated. He and his mother moved to Vallejo, California, where she raised him with the aid of her parents. As he got older, Burr began to take jobs to support his mother, younger sister and younger brother. He took jobs as a ranch hand in Roswell, New Mexico; as a deputy sheriff; a photo salesman; and even as a singer in nightclubs.

In World War II, Burr served in the United States Navy. In Okinawa, he was shot in the stomach and sent home. In 1946, Burr made his film debut in San Quentin (1946). From there, he appeared in more than 90 films before landing the role of defense attorney Perry Mason (1957). After a battle with cancer, Burr died at age 76 on September 12, 1993 at his ranch home in Sonoma, California. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Kelleher, Brian Spouse (1) Had an art gallery on Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive in the early 1950s. Loved to cook and throw intimate dinner parties. While working with Errol Flynn , Flynn told him that if he died with ten dollars in his pocket he hadn't done a good job. This inspired him to always share his wealth with all. On October 1, 1993, a memorial service was held at the Pasadena Playhouse. It was the very same theater in which Burr had made his acting debut 50 years before.

A director's chair with his name on it, placed at center stage, played host to friends who paid tribute. Suffered eye strain from always having to look upwards while in a wheelchair on the Ironside (1967) set. Was a lounge singer in his younger days. Before dying from cancer he threw parties to say farewell to many of his friends. Interred at Fraser Cemetery, New Westminister, British Columbia, Canada. Bought his own 3,000-acre island 165 miles northeast of Suva in Fiji in 1965 and named it Naitamba, where he raised cattle and copra. Left his $32-million estate solely to long-term partner Robert Benevides . The Columbia Theatre on Columbia Street in New Westminster, British Columbia, was renamed in his honor in 2000. He, Michael J. Fox and Jim Carrey head a list of top Canadians in United States television compiled by Banff Television Festival in June 2002. He was the director of the Pasadena Community Playhouse before entering the United States Navy in World War II. He attended Stanford, Columbia and Chungking Universities. He taught drama at Columbia University.

He was incredibly generous, giving most of his money to charities and sharing it with friends. Longtime companion of Robert Benevides . Benevides was a young actor Burr met on the set of the original Perry Mason (1957) television series. He was 13 years Raymond's junior. He had a small role in the sci-fi film The Monster That Challenged the World (1957), billed as Bob Benevedes. His official biography stated that he had been married three times, but two of his wives and one child had died. However, these details were fabricated in an attempt to hide the fact that Burr was gay. Only one brief marriage had actually occurred, and it had ended in divorce. The other two marriages and the child were fiction. Was the original host of Unsolved Mysteries (1987), hosting only its first special in January 1987. He was then briefly replaced by Karl Malden . However, both actors requested salaries that producer John Cosgrove deemed astronomical. So by the time the show became a regular series in 1988, Robert Stack had been hired as the permanent host at what the producer believed to be a more reasonable salary.

In 1990, not long before he grew ill with cancer, Burr and longtime partner Robert Benevides started a vineyard at their Dry Creek Valley ranch, and released their first vintage. The wine was bottled in November 1992 and released after Burr's death in 1995. He had an interest in, and knowledge of, the cultivation and hybridization of orchids. He and partner of 35 years, Robert Benevides , set up Sea God Nurseries, becoming, in the 20-odd years of its operation, an international presence with ranges in Fiji, Hawaii, the Azores and Southern California. They were responsible for over 1,500 new orchids added to the worldwide catalog. Burr cultivated an orchid that he named after his former Perry Mason (1957), co-star, Barbara Hale , as the symbol of friendship. He is commemorated on a 2008 Canadian postage stamp, one of four honoring achievements of Canadians in Hollywood. The other three depict Norma Shearer , Marie Dressler , and Chief Dan George . Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives".

Volume 3, 1991-1993, pages 84-85. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001. Featured in "Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir" by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry (McFarland, 2003). His parents, Minerva and William Burr, after 33 years of separation, remarried in 1955. After he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, he refused to undergo surgery so that he could star in his final television movies: The Return of Ironside (1993) and Perry Mason: The Case of the Killer Kiss (1993). His mother Minerva died in 1974, at age 81 of cancer, while his father, William, died in 1985, at age 96. Dropped out of San Rafael Military School at age 17 to join the Civilian Conservation Corps, where he learned to fight forest fires and plant trees. His parents were married in Canada in 1914, after they migrated from Chicago, Illinois.

Was considered for the role of Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke (1955). In an August 23, 1975, article in TV Guide called "When Chester Forgot to Limp" commemorating trivia from the show as it was about to leave the air, the show's first producer Charles Marquis Warren recalled, "His voice was fine, but he was too big. When he stood up, his chair stood up with him". William Conrad , who played Matt Dillon on radio, was rejected for the TV version for similar reasons. In a memorial article in TV Guide published shortly after Burr's death, the original producers of Perry Mason (1957) almost rejected Burr for that role, again because Burr was overweight. He went on an intensive diet to get down to a size acceptable to the producers. Appears as lawyer Perry Mason, with William Talman as District Attorney Hamilton Burger, on a 44¢ USA commemorative postage stamp in the "Early TV Memories" issue honoring Perry Mason (1957), issued 11 August 2009.

Best remembered by the public for his starring roles as the title characters of both series: Perry Mason (1957) and Ironside (1967). Has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6656 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California. The Museum of Broadcast Communications - Encyclopedia of Television - Burr, Raymond RAYMOND BURR RAYMOND BURR U.S. Actor Raymond Burr is so associated with his characterization of television lawyer/detective Perry Mason that his rich and varied career in film, radio, and television is often ignored. His face, in the words of Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner, is cow-eyed. He is broad shouldered, heavy, robust, but excelled at playing introverted rather than extroverted characters. This may be, in part, why Burr accomplished the rare television feat in which actor becomes almost thoroughly identified with character, the performer inseparable from the role. Just as William Shatner is James Kirk, Peter Falk is Columbo, and Carroll O'Connor is Archie Bunker, Burr is Perry Mason. Burr began as a stage actor who performed small roles in radio.

His early film work was remarkable only in the sense that he rarely played anything other than the villain in such films as Raw Deal (1948). Burr even managed to play the "heavy" in comedies, such as the Marx Brothers' Love Happy (1949). When he was in the courtroom drama A Place in the Sun (1951) he assumed the role of the relentless District Attorney. During these movie years Burr continued to work in several radio series such as Pat Novak for Hire (1949) and Dragnet (1949-1950). In 1954 he confirmed his villainous persona with his appearance as the menacing wife-killer Lars Thorwald in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954). In 1955 when he learned that the lawyer/detective drama Perry Mason was being cast for television, Burr was requested to audition--but for the part of district attorney Hamilton Burger, another "villain". As the story goes the producers at Paisano Productions (the Perry Mason production company) allowed Burr to try for the title role simply to secure his audition for Burger.

Erle Stanley Gardner, author of the original Mason novels and co-creator of the television series, is said to have taken a look at Burr during the audition and declared "He's Perry Mason." This was the role Burr played from 1957 to 1966 and reprised in a successful series of Made-for-Television Movies from 1985 until his death in 1993. At the time of Perry Mason's popularity Burr was one of the highest paid actors in series television, commanding a yearly salary of $1 million. Yet he was well known for his philanthropy. Between television production seasons he would take the time to journey to Vietnam on his own--not to perform but to meet and visit with those serving on the front lines. Burr was comfortable with self-depreciating humor and appeared in numerous television send-ups of his own career and characters on shows such as The Jack Benny Show and The Red Skelton Show. What happened to Burr was a classic case of an actor being blended with a character he or she successfully plays.

During his time on Perry Mason, Burr and his character gradually merged so much that when the series was recast in 1973 with Monte Markham in the title role the audience refused to accept anyone else as Mason. The Markham version was canceled after 15 unsuccessful episodes. The Burr/Mason association was so strong that Burr even received an honorary law doctorate from the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, California. This connection between character and actor was a burden to Burr. He continued to be associated with Mason, even when he starred as a wheelchair-bound policeman in another successful series, Ironside (1967-75). In this series, Burr portrayed Chief of Detectives Robert Ironside, crippled by an assassin's bullet in the pilot episode. Although urged to retire, Ironside worked to ferret out criminals--this time from the prosecution's side. The show was pure crime drama common to the late sixties, mixed with "hip" dialogue and situations relevant to the time. As Richard Meyers argues in TV Detectives (1988), Ironside was the perfect "armchair detective." It was still rational detection, in the Perry Mason mode, that was his strongest asset.

Burr tried several other series, but after the twin successes of Perry Mason and Ironside he was unable to capture the unity of character that a television series needs. In 1976 he had the title role of (surprise) a lawyer in Mallory: Circumstantial Evidence, a pilot that never went to series. Next he played an investigative reporter in Kingston: Confidential, which aired as a series for less than a season 1977, and another lawyer in The Jordan Chance(1978), also a failed pilot. Through the early to middle 1980s Burr was a pitchman for a number of products such as the Independent Insurance Agents association. Only when he returned to the role of Mason in the Made-for-Television Movie Perry Mason Returns (1985) was he able to renew his success in American television. He also reprised his role as Chief Ironside in The Return of Ironside in 1993. The original cast returned for what was planned to be a new series of Made-for-Television Movies, but only the first movie was completed. Burr finally succumbed to cancer on 12 September 1993.

To every character, Burr brought a cool calculation and intensity. In his three most notable roles--as Lars Thorwald in Hitchcock's Rear Window, Perry Mason and Robert Ironside--his acting is introspective and low-key. He portrayed Thorwald as stony-faced and deliberate, thoroughly menacing. That same focus was present in his Mason and Ironside but transformed Burr into the hero rather than the villain. While his Thorwald could level a stare across a courtyard to frighten voyeurs looking out their rear window, his Mason could stare down a witness and bring a quick and heartfelt confession. Further, his Ironside could do more acting sitting in a wheelchair than others could do standing. Burr's stare still reveals more than the ranting and pacing of most other actors. -J.

Dennis Bounds 'Ironside' Actor Don Mitchell Dies at 70 | Hollywood Reporter 'Ironside' Actor Don Mitchell Dies at 70 9:24 AM PST 12/11/2013 by Mike Barnes COMMENTS Everett Collection He assisted Raymond Burr on the 1970s NBC series and starred in the blaxploitation film "Scream Blacula Scream." Don Mitchell, the aide to the wheelchair-bound Raymond Burr on the 1970s NBC police series Ironside, died Sunday in Encino of natural causes. He was 70. Mitchell played Mark Sanger, an ex-con who is persuaded by Robert T. Ironside to become his driver and assistant after the San Francisco chief of detectives is paralyzed from the waist down by a sniper's bullet. "Well, now, you lookin' for a boy!" Sanger says in the pilot, which aired in March 1967. "No, just legs," says Ironside. "You got 'em and I need 'em." Ironside also was assisted by Sgt. Ed Brown (Don Galloway) and plainclothes officer Eve Whitfield (Barbara Anderson).

Mitchell returned as Sanger, who later became a lawyer in the series, for a 1993 reunion telefilm. Created by Collier Young (and with a great theme song by Quincy Jones), Ironside ran for eight seasons, until January 1975. The show was revived by NBC this season but canceled after just four episodes, with Blair Underwood as the title character. A native of Houston who attended UCLA, Mitchell starred opposite Pam Grier in the sequel Scream Blacula Scream (1973), playing an ex-police officer with an interest in the occult. He also appeared on such TV shows as I Dream of Jeannie, The Fugitive, McMillan & Wife, Wonder Woman and Matlock. Mitchell was married to actress Judy Pace (Peyton Place, Brian's Song) from 1972-86. She later married former Major League Baseball star Curt Flood. Survivors include daughter Julia Pace Mitchell (The Young and the Restless). Mitchell's death was first reported by the Los Angeles Times .

Twitter: @mikebarnes4 Ironside | Archive of American Television About This Show From Wikipedia: Ironside is an American television crime drama that aired on NBC from 1967 to 1975. The show starred Raymond Burr as Robert T. Ironside, a consultant for the San Francisco Police who was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the line of duty. The character debuted on March 28, 1967, in a TV movie called "A Man Called Ironside". When the show was broadcast in the United Kingdom, it was initially under that same title. The show earned Burr six Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations. Ironside was a production of Burr's Harbour Productions Unlimited in association with Universal Television. The show revolved around former San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Chief of Detectives Robert T. Ironside (Raymond Burr), a veteran of more than 20 years of police service who was forced to retire from the department after a sniper's bullet paralyzed him from the waist down, causing him to use a wheelchair.

In the pilot episode, a TV movie, Ironside shows his strength of character and gets himself appointed a "special department consultant" by his good friend, Police Commissioner Dennis Randall. He does this by calling a press conference and then tricking Commissioner Randall into meeting his terms. In the pilot, Ironside eventually solves the mystery of the ambush. He requests Ed Brown and Eve Whitfield be assigned to him. Ironside uses a fourth-floor room (for living and office space) in the Old San Francisco Hall Of Justice building, which housed the city's police headquarters. He uses a specially equipped, former fleet-modified 1940 1-1/2 ton Ford police paddy wagon van. This is replaced in the episode entitled "Poole's Paradise" after the van is destroyed by Sergeant Brown as part of a way to trick a corrupt sheriff. At the end of the episode the paddy wagon is replaced by a modified 1969 1 ton Ford Econoline Window Van. He later recruits the angst-filled black ex-con Mark Sanger to be his personal assistant after Sanger is brought in as a suspect who wanted to kill Ironside. The show became a success as Ironside depended on brains and initiative in handling cases.

Although Ironside was good-hearted and honest, he maintained a gruff persona. Supporting characters on Ironside included Det. Sgt. Edward "Ed" Brown (Don Galloway) and a young socialite-turned-plainclothes officer, Eve Whitfield (Barbara Anderson). In addition there was delinquent-turned-bodyguard/assistant Mark Sanger (Don Mitchell), who also opted to become a police officer, and subsequently graduated from law school (night classes were mentioned from early on), then even married late in the run of the series. Commissioner Randall was played by Gene Lyons. By the program's fourth season, Anderson left over a contract dispute and was replaced by another young policewoman, Fran Belding (Elizabeth Baur), who filled much the same role for four more years. The series enjoyed an eight-season run on NBC, drawing respectable, if not always high, ratings. As the eighth season began, Universal released a syndicated rerun package of episodes from earlier seasons under the title The Raymond Burr Show, reflecting the practice of that time to differentiate original network episodes from syndicated reruns whenever possible. Upon NBC's mid-season cancellation, however, the syndicated episodes reverted to the Ironside title.

Who Talked About This Show Raymond Burr Dies; Played Perry Mason : Actor: He portrayed a crusading defense attorney in the popular TV series. He was also known for his role in the movie 'Rear Window.' - latimes Raymond Burr Dies; Played Perry Mason : Actor: He portrayed a crusading defense attorney in the popular TV series. He was also known for his role in the movie 'Rear Window.' September 13, 1993 | From Times Staff and Wire Reports Raymond Burr, who began his dramatic career portraying an unsavory assortment of hoodlums, killers and villains, and climaxed it as the legendary attorney who defended them, died Sunday night at his Sonoma County ranch. He was 76, and had been suffering from cancer, a friend said. Although his movie roles often cast the heavyset Canadian-born actor as a bad guy--such as the murderer who menaced James Stewart in "Rear Window"--it was by television roles as the crusading defense attorney in "Perry Mason," which ran for nine seasons, and later the wheelchair-bound San Francisco police detective in the series "Ironside," that his fame was cemented.

So popular was the late 1950s-early 1960s lawyer series that won him two Emmys, that when the Perry Mason role was revived in a 1985 made-for-TV film, it earned the year's highest ratings for such a movie, and prompted a Perry Mason revival. The TV show is still in reruns. Burr completed his last Perry Mason film in mid-August in Denver, showing up on the set at 4 a.m. in a wheelchair. After the filming, he returned to his vineyards and farm in Northern California, where he died. His friend Charles Macaulay said Burr's doctor, Paul Margulio, gave the cause as metastatic cancer of the liver. Six feet tall and deep-voiced, with mesmerizing eyes, Burr had tried his hand at virtually ever kind of acting, from the original camp classic "Godzilla" to the varied roles of a repertory theater tour of England in his youth, to a stint as a singer in a Paris nightclub before World War II. Raymond William Stacy Burr was born in British Columbia in 1917, the eldest of three children of a Canadian hardware dealer and American organist.

His parents divorced when he was 6, and Raymond grew up in Vallejo, Calif. Later in life, he would recount how he had worked at many jobs to make ends meet, such as a stint on a New Mexico ranch at age 13, where he "mended fence, milked cows, helped with births of lambs and calves, and rode for miles." He served in the Navy during World War II, returning to Canada from his nightclub work at a Left Bank cafe called the Ruban Bleu, and made his film debut in "San Quentin" in 1946. Unlike many in his craft, he was virtually never at a loss for work: His commanding figure and compelling eyes made him a natural for such roles as Montgomery Clift's prosecutor in "A Place in the Sun," the man who stalked Natalie Wood in "A Cry in the Night," and the murderer Jimmy Stewart spots in "Rear Window." But it was television that made his deep-timbred voice and bulky figure famous, and made Burr wealthy.

If the formula of "Perry Mason" was always the same--the dedicated attorney outsmarting the prosecutor to see justice done, often in gripping witness stand revelations--it enthralled audiences, making him TV's most successful lawyer for nine seasons, from 1957 to 1966. Even Pope John XXIII was a fan, and granted Burr an audience. "Perry Mason went on the air when people were first buying television sets," Burr said in an Associated Press interview this year. "A lot of people in this country didn't know what their legal system was all about. I'm sure just from the people who have watched the show over the years, particularly the minorities, they found out the system of justice was for them." He dismissed criticism by real attorneys (including many prosecutors, annoyed at seeing their side lose week after week) that such drama ruined people for the necessary tedium of real justice.

"Every bit of (Perry Mason) was within the framework of what could happen in a court in the county of Los Angeles or the state of California." Burr returned to law and order as the unflappable San Francisco detective in the 1960s-'70s series "Ironside," and returned to Perry Mason in 1985, for the popular TV movie "Perry Mason." But a brief series in which he played an investigative reporter, "Kingston: Confidential," lasted only 13 episodes in 1977. In the TV movies, Barbara Hale again played his loyal secretary--the two had known each other for a half-century, since their days at RKO--and at last Burr had something to say about the question viewers had been asking for nearly 30 years. "People would say: 'Is he sleeping with Della Street, and if not, why not?"' Burr said this year. "Fifty percent of them want him to, and 50 percent don't want him to. I try to play both 50 percents." Burr married three times. His first wife died in a plane shot down by the Nazis in World War II.

He divorced his second wife, and his third wife died of cancer. His son died of leukemia at age 10. Burr's hobby was raising orchids; he developed thousands of kinds, and donated his collection to Cal Poly Pomona in 1982 when it outgrew his premises. Burr is survived by Geraldine Fuller, his sister, who lives in Fairbanks, Alaska, and his longtime business associate and companion, actor Robert Benevides. MORE:

Question: What is the first name of the character Ironside played by Raymond Burr?
Answer: ROBERT